Johannes Sauer, son of Hans Georg and Anna Margaretha Sauer, was born on 6 April 1742, and baptized on 8 April 1742 in the Lutheran Church in Hofheim, about 5 kilometers northeast of Worms. He married Anna Barbara (surname unknown).
Johannes and Anna Barbara immigrated to Russia as colonists of the recruiter Le Roy. They departed from the port of Lübeck by the snow-brig Der Merkur with skipper Johann Heinrich Abelmann at the helm, and arrived in Oranienbaum on 8 August 1766.
Johannes and Anna Barbara Sauer continued their journey, arriving in Sewald on 20 August 1767 where they are recorded on the 1767 census in Household No. 27. By the time of the 1798 Census, Johannes and his son Nikolaus had moved to Köhler where they are recorded in Household No. Kl80.
- Mai, Brent Alan. 1798 Census of the German Colonies along the Volga: Economy, Population, and Agriculture (Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, 1999).
- Parish records of Hofheim (LDS Film No. 1340301).
- Pleve, Igor. Einwanderung in das Wolgagebiet, 1764-1767 Band 4 (Göttingen: Nordost-Institut, 2008): 173.
- Pleve, Igor. Lists of Colonists to Russia in 1766: Reports by Ivan Kulberg (Saratov: Saratov State Technical University, 2010): 220.